Arab League takes a step towards full-scale war in Syria

Apr 03 2013

specially for RIR

Munzer Hallun

Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby supposes arming the opposition would “balance” the forces of the adversaries in Syria and eventually accelerate the achievement of a political solution.” Source: AP

Moscow believes the Arab League’s decision at its Doha Summit to offer Syria’s place in the association to the opposition is “completely unhelpful” when it comes to a peaceful settlement of the conflict in the war-torn country.

A decision was made at the Arab League
Summit held in the Qatar capital of Doha on March 26 to offer the National
Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (NCSROF) Syria’s place
in the Arab League ‘until elections are held to form a new government.’ “The
National Coalition shall be the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people,
the main Arab League partner, considering the sacrifice of the Syrian people
and the exceptional conditions in which the Syrians find themselves,” said the
document, which was read aloud live on Arab TV channels.

A meeting of Arab League foreign ministers
that took place two days earlier ended with the decision, backed by Qatar,
Saudi Arabia and the ‘Arab spring’ countries to hand over Syria’s place to the
NCSROF. Algeria and Iraq voted against the motion, arguing that such a decision
contradicts the Arab League Charter, while Syria’s neighbour Lebanon abstained.
Article 8 of the Arab League Charter details the need to respect the state
system of all the Arab League countries and the inadmissibility of any actions
aimed at regime change in the Arab states. The charter also envisages that
decisions on such issues should be taken unanimously. Otherwise, a decision is
binding only for those who have backed it.

The Arab countries in Doha recognise the
importance of efforts to settle the conflict in Syria by political means. But
each state has been left to decide for itself whether they should supply arms
to the groups fighting the Bashar Assad regime. The summit’s final document
says that “each member state of the Arab League has the right to supply defencive
means as it so wishes – including military defence – to support the resistance
of the Syrian people and the Free Syrian Army (the armed wing of the Syrian
opposition).”

In the opinion of Arab League Secretary
General Nabil Elaraby arming the opposition would “balance” the forces of the
adversaries in Syria and eventually accelerate the achievement of a political
solution.”

Russia has criticised the Arab League’s
position. “The Arab League has renounced peaceful settlement and the decision
that makes the National Coalition for Syrian Opposition Forces the sole
legitimate representative of the Syrian people definitely erases all the
efforts exerted up until now, including the accords reached in Geneva on June 30,
2012,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

The decision to give Syria’s place to the
NCSROF is “completely unhelpful” in terms of peaceful settlement of the
conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic,” says Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s Ambassador
to the UN. “It means that the Arab League has totally withdrawn from the
process of the search for political settlement of the crisis,” he told
ITAR-TASS. He recalled that the Arab League “from the outset had found itself
under the influence of certain extremist forces and certain states which have
their own agenda,” on the Syrian issue in the efforts to end the conflict.

According to Churkin, offering NCSROF a
place in the Arab League that rightly belongs to Damascus raises certain legal
questions. “Syria has not been expelled from the league, its membership has
been suspended,” Churkin said. “In general, suspending Syria’s membership in
the Arab League from the beginning of the crisis showed that the league was not
committed to serious negotiated decisions,” he said.

Meanwhile, the armed opposition admits
that the next step it would like to see is external military intervention
approved by the UN. “The summit must prepare an appeal to the UN Security
Council demanding that Chapter 7 of that organisation’s charter be invoked,”
Mahmud Al-Hamza, a member of the opposition Syrian National Council, told Izvestia.

Moderate Syrian opposition has condemned
the decisions taken at the Arab League Summit. “The decision of the Arab League
to give Syria’s place to the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary Opposition
Forces is illegal in terms of the structure of the Arab League because the Arab
League is an association of states and not an organisation. The preference and
support of an association representing only one wing of the opposition deals a
blow to the efforts of the UN and Arab League special envoy to Syria, Lakhdar
Brahimi, and the efforts of the entire world community by way of the Geneva
agreement to reach a peaceful settlement in Syria. The results of the Arab
League summit suggest that a serious step has been made towards dismembering
Syria,” said Majed Habbo, Secretary of the overseas branch of the opposition
Coordinating Committee for Democratic Change.

Related:

Rim Turkmani, a leading member of the
opposition Building the Syrian State Movement had this comment on the Arab
League’s position: “The decision of the Arab League to recognise and support
the opposition will merely aggravate the situation in the country, stiffening
the regime’s resistance and deepening the divisions in society. Although words
were heard at the summit on political means of settling the conflict, practical
decisions attest to the opposite: the place at the Arab League has been given
to an opposition organisation whose charter says unequivocally that there can
be no negotiations and no dialogue with the regime.”